HERAT, Afghanistan
(WOMENSENEWS)
--A 19-year-old woman forced
to become a second wife to
a man she did not love died
last month after pouring a
gallon of gas on her body
and lighting a match.

The death of
Shakiba, who like many here
only goes by a single name,
has been one in a string of
self-immolation cases in this
city of 330,000 in the last
six months since the fall
of the Taliban.

Young women
feeling trapped in family
conflicts are setting themselves
ablaze in an age-old suicide
method for women in the region.
In Herat, a prosperous city
on the Iranian border in Southwestern
Afghanistan, no one died of
self-immolation last year
during the reign of the Taliban,
but four women have killed
themselves so far this year,
including a 14-year-old girl
whose family had married her
off to a 60-year-old man,
hospital records show.

Nine out of
the 26 Herat burn victims
were attempted suicides. No
self-immolation statistics
were available for the rest
of the country.

No one is able
to explain the rise in victims.
But authorities are now addressing
publicly what used to be a
private issue.

'I Didn't
Know What Else to Do'

Herat's governor,
Ismail Khan, visited the burn
unit in the hospital last
month to talk to Shakiba and
another victim, Sanaa, and
the city's television station
dedicated an hour-long program
on July 21 to the issue.

That the government
is taking an active role in
calling attention to the problem
shows its urgency. Officials
are pressuring families to
talk with daughters who feel
they have no choices in this
male-dominated country.

>From her
hospital bed, Shakiba told
Herat television that she
burned herself because her
family had sold her to a 28-year-old
man for $10,000 as a second
wife. The teen-ager had agreed
to be married only after her
brother convinced her that
the man would take good care
of her financially.

While most girls
agree to arranged marriages,
some parents force their daughters
to wed. Families demand up
to $15,000 for their daughters
and sell them to the highest
bidder.

After six months
of being engaged, Shakiba
said she had received no gifts
or financial gain and her
husband-to-be wanted her to
live with the first wife.
He also refused to throw a
big wedding for her as Shakiba
had requested and her family
did not come to her defense.

"My family
was selling me and I didn't
know what else to do,"
Shakiba told the television
reporter. She was transferred
to Iran for better treatment
and died there three weeks
later. Ninety-two percent
of her body was burned. Her
funeral was held in Herat.

Many Debate
Cause of Increased Suicides

Despite the
fact that women are allowed
far more freedoms than during
the Taliban era--they attend
school and work now--the deeper
societal restrictions have
yet to be tackled.

Some Afghans
believe the insidious effect
of the Taliban era is just
emerging. Women are finally
reacting to the injustices
forced upon them during the
last six years and the rise
in self-immolation is a way
of protesting, experts say.

Bitterness and
a sense of desperation that
no one is on their side drives
these women to kill themselves,
said Asifa Aimaq, a psychologist
and head of the Pedagogical
Institute in Herat.

"They don't
want to die," Aimaq said.
"They're just calling
for attention." Yet,
the hospital staff report
that with limited medicine
and treatment possibilities,
80 percent of these women
die.

Incidents that
lead up to self-immolation
are often small. But they
reflect bigger family problems.

The other victim
in Herat's hospital, Sanaa,
has first-degree burns on
40 percent of her body. She
poured the gas and lit the
match in front of her husband,
Abdul Naim, to protest living
with his family. The 20-year-old
will live, doctors say, but
it will take months for her
to heal. When the nurse lifted
the white sheet over her body
recently, the young woman's
features above the torso were
barely recognizable.

"I did
it because of my mother-in-law,"
Sanaa said, her speech slurred
because half of her mouth
has been burned.

"She fought
with me a thousand times.
I couldn't tolerate it any
more," she said. "I
did it because at the time,
I felt like I had no other
choice."

Authorities
Fear Copycat Self-Immolations

Sanaa said she
lives with 15 of her in-laws
and her mother-in-law treats
her like a servant, always
creating trouble between her
and her husband. The day Sanaa
burned herself, her mother-in-law
accused her of throwing dirty
water on the family food.
Sanaa denied the charge and
the two women began shouting
at each other.

Sanaa's husband
beat both of them to quiet
them. But Naim came to her
defense after his wife attempted
suicide.

Naim said he
had stood up for his wife
numerous times but his mother
continued to meddle into their
lives. Even though it's against
tradition for him to leave
his family home, Naim says
he will do so for his wife.

"My mother
has been horrible to her and
so I'm going to move out,"
he said.

In the end,
Sanaa got what she wanted:
a separate life and home away
from her in-laws. Authorities
worry that copycats are to
blame for the increase in
self-immolation victims. Other
girls, they say, will use
Sanaa's strategy to solve
their own problems.

"It's an
idea in their head because
it happens all the time in
this country," said Mumtaz
Abazada, a nurse in the intensive
care unit of Herat's hospital.
"But once they hear somebody
else did it and got away with
it, then they take action."

Part of Their
Freedom May Be 'Chance to
Die'

Whatever the
motivation, it is a mystery
why more women are turning
to self-immolation when there
is no evidence that family
tensions have worsened since
the fall of the Taliban. Indeed,
suicide is taboo in Muslim
societies because it is believed
that those who kill themselves
go to hell.

Mahbooba Aslami
registers patients at the
city's hospital and helps
prepare a health show on the
city's television and radio
program. She said that if
a girl attempted to kill herself,
the Taliban immediately blamed
her parents and would arrest
and beat her father without
conducting an investigation.
The new moderate Islamic government
here has been trying to implement
a socially oriented--rather
than criminal--solution, Aslami
said.

"Now they
talk to the girls and the
family," she said. "Maybe
the girls feel part of their
freedom is the chance to die.
We still haven't figured out
the reason."

Reaction from
residents has been a mixture
of pity and anger directed
at the victims. Students have
been reflecting on their societal
ills. But everyone seems to
be talking about the incidents.

Farrokh Ishaqzai,
60, argued with her niece
Roya Hamid, a 24-year-old
fine arts student at Herat
University. The older woman
said it's better for the women
to die since they are sinning
for attempting suicide.

"They will
probably go to hell anyway,"
Ishaqzai said.

Hamid told her
that many women are not aware
of their rights and don't
know how to communicate with
their families. Their desperation
in part is a result of their
ignorance, she added, but
they don't deserve to die.

"I would
fight back if my parents forced
me into marriage, but my family
is open-minded so I have a
choice," Hamid said.
"But even if they weren't,
I would find another way"
instead of suicide, she said.
"You have to take your
(human) rights. No one will
give them to you."

Naeem Azizian,
a young computer technician
at a foreign-aid agency, said
the women are not to blame.
"Parents need to understand
that these women should have
a choice and that they are
also human beings," Azizian
said.

Fariba Nawa
is an Afghan-American freelance
journalist who has written
for Mother Jones, The Village
Voice, the San Francisco Chronicle,
Agence-France Presse and Newsday.